Tap into YouTube’s enormous viewer base

• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and the 3rd most visited website worldwide, behind only Google and Facebook respectively.
• 1 billion people visit YouTube each month globally. 100 hours of video are uploaded every 60 seconds to YouTube. Video-streaming platforms like YouTube have become so big companies are guaranteed to find a group of people who will become regular viewers and customers, as long as they are educated, entertained and are provided with solutions to their problems.
• Marketing On YouTube Will Help You Get Found On Google:

You can write high-quality articles on your site and create complementary videos on YouTube. Doing this will build backlinks to your site, meaning you get found on Google more often by people searching.

By utilising YouTube as part of a marketing strategy for your business, you also increase the authority of your website. The more authoritative your website is in Google’s eyes, the higher all your pages will rank in the search

Growing Your Audience Worldwide

This is one of the biggest benefits of using YouTube for business.

Consistently creating video content opens the door to new visitors who would never come across your business any other way. Through YouTube, you can reach a worldwide audience even if you only speak one language. In addition to this, if you include closed-captions on your videos, you can also reach new audiences as you are catering to people with different needs. Research now shows that videos with closed-captions receive 4% more views and subscribers than those without.

It is also crucial to include several call-to-actions inside your videos, with annotations that link to:

• Other videos
• Content on your website
• Email auto-responder series
• Products and services on offer

Building Trust

Videos with a personal touch help to increase conversions. People buy from those they trust, and that trust is built by you relating to them on an emotional level.

Research now shows that, for professional services and companies, if you are driving traffic to a landing page with a video of a person in the company speaking about the product or service, it can dramatically increase your list of leads and sales.

Targeting your audience with Adwords for Video

With Google AdWords for Video, you can get laser-focused access to your audience by advertising on videos your audience are more likely to watch and search for. The biggest advantage of AdWords for Video is that you only pay for engaged views i.e. when a viewer watches your ad for at least 30 seconds. The biggest benefit of AdWords for Video is the potential to grow your audience through ‘earned views’. These views are free and are earned when someone who chooses to watch your video ad, then goes on to watch one or more videos on your YouTube channel within a 7-day period.

Tips for effectively updating your existing YouTube channel if you have one:

• Organise your videos into groups / playlists.
• Include up to 5 links in the channel (website, social media profiles etc)
• Hide many of the old videos (put in private mode). For the ones you decide to keep, check all have a clear and strong title and description with links to subscribe and including appropriate hashtags
• Look at channel tabs and keywords and optimise
• Create attractive thumbnail
• Add CTAs for engagement  – cards up to 5 per video
• Remind viewers to like, share, subscribe
• Have a look at competitive sites (design, content, popularity and keywords used) and optimise
• Set up monthly analytics to measure ongoing views, shares and subscribers etc

For more details about setting up a YouTube channel including a 10 step guide read Hootsuite’s Complete Guide to YouTube Marketing  in 2023.